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[ecrea] Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes: call for contributions

Mon Dec 14 19:13:29 GMT 2009



Queering Middle Eastern Cyberscapes
Special issue of Journal of Middle Eastern Womenâ??s Studies

<http://sites.google.com/site/queeringmideasterncyberscapes/home>http://sites.google.com/site/queeringmideasterncyberscapes/home



Guest Editors: Noor Al-Qasimi and Adi Kuntsman



Call for Papers



Digital media and cybercultures have long been explored as fields of identity formation, cultural contestations, and political tensions. Digital mediascapes have also been of particular interest to scholars of gender and sexuality for their potential to transform some gendered, racial, and sexual power structures while reaffirming, and often violently reinforcing, others. This special issue of Journal of Middle Eastern Womenâ??s Studies aims to bring feminist and queer analysis of media and communication technologies (the Internet, mobile phones, surveillance technologies, digital television, and telecommunication) to the field of the Middle East as both a geo-cultural space and a political entity.



Our intention is to examine the intersections, tensions, and co-constitutions of queer sexualities and communication technologies; queerness as a form of digitalized affect and as a political practice; mediated violence and violence of mediation; new technological frontiers and frontiers of identities; and practices of everyday use and digitalized imaginaries. We hope to explore these and other phenomena as they emerge in Middle Eastern countries and communities and their diasporas. In recent years, much work has focused on media in the Middle East, and gender/sexuality in the Middle East; however, there is a paucity of scholarship on the intersection of these fields. Still less work has emphasized queering as a political metaphor in relation to the field of Middle East Studies. The aim of this special issue is to acknowledge the utility of a postcolonial queer critique as applied to this region and its diasporas.



We are soliciting work that engages with the intersection of media and sexuality with reference to the Middle East. Possible topics thus include:



Surveillance, war on terror

The policing of sexuality

Orientalism in new media cultures

Governmentality, biopolitics, and the Middle East

Sexuality and media censorship

Media technologies (e.g., YouTube, mobile phones, bluetooth, picture/video messaging) and queerness

Queer and/or social networking websites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace)

Queer Middle Eastern diasporas in cyberspace

HIV/AIDS-related online communities

Homophobia

LGBT and NGO activism

Drag, cross-dressing, butch/femme identities, other queer subjectivities

Gay imperialism


We welcome abstracts of articles to be considered for inclusion in this special volume. Please send a bio and a 500-word abstract detailing the topic of your article, the overall context, your material, methodology, and theoretical argument by the 1st of February 2010 to <mailto:(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com)>(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com) . Authors will be notified by the 15th of February 2010 of the outcome of their submissions. If accepted, full papers should be submitted by the 1st of July 2010. Papers will then be reviewed individually in the standard double-blind review process.

We also welcome shorter pieces of creative or analytical writing (up to 1000 words, or 4000 words for interviews) or visual material on the theme of this special volume. These pieces may be topical and/or polemical. They are not sent out to be peer-reviewed but are selected by the editors of the issue. If you would like to submit a short piece, please contact us to discuss the format and deadlines.



Abstracts and inquiries about this issue should be sent to <mailto:(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com)>(qmecissue /at/ googlemail.com) .


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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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